Monthly Archives: August 2020

Podcast – What do you look for in a candidate?

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I would have voted for Orrin Hatch.

What do you look for in a candidate?

Related blog post: A near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused

Related: Police chief’s decision to quit may have just saved Seattle from itself

Music: Neil Diamond, “America”

Status report: A snapshot of my life right now

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On Tuesday 12/02, my therapist asked for a thumbnail summary of my overall situation.

I said, “I have goals, I’m taking concrete steps toward those goals, and I have a ton of hope.”

I know no way to account for this but the exact scenario I set forth in “Chaos overwhelms the poor:” I pay attention only to the concrete here-and-how, and to what I myself can do.  (Related:  Here – Now – Can.)  From the farthest reach of my right fingertip to my right, to the farthest reach of my left fingertip to my left: within that range lies all my responsibility, everything that I can control.  Here, the world appears orderly.  Here, I can order and manage my affairs.  Here I have power.  I can act effectively.  I can easily find hope.

A ton of hope.
Continue reading Status report: A snapshot of my life right now →

Cosmology

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I originally wrote this as an introductory passage for “What the New Testament means to me.”   I wound up leaving it out as I didn’t think Ezekah would care for a whole lot of abstraction.

As I view the world right now, I see three elements:  (1) What Is, including the material (seen) world, the spiritual (unseen) world, and all possibilities of events that can possibly occur.  I may as well call this “God.”  (2)  A single set of principles that govern existence and all events that can occur.  What we call the laws of physics are an example of these principles.  I may as well call this “God’s will.”

(3) Human activity.  It may be that there are no commandments, and no such thing as sin.  Rather, God’s will is inviolable; and it is how we interact with What Is, inevitably in accordance with those principles, that brings weal or woe.  If we act this way, we can have a world of harmony, beauty and joy.  If we act that way, we’ll have a world of poverty, violence and bloodshed.

So far, there is neither need nor room for teachings of John and Paul that deviate from Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptics: no need nor room for a Son of God, perfect sacrifice, “belief in” Jesus, or heaven or hell — aside from the heaven or hell we create for ourselves in this life, here and now.

“What the New Testament means to me” points to ways to create, in effect, heaven on earth.  The opposite path is described in “A living hell.”

Originally posted 2014-12-17.